Agenda item

Mr Mark Wolski introduced the item.

The meeting heard:

·         In relation to the resourcing of sites, these each came with their own set of governance, their own set of expectations, own set of command structures. Haringey was the only borough in London, possibly the only authority in the country that had two Clear, Hold, Build sites. This caused logistical issues.

·         The presentation focused broadly on Northumberland Park.

·         With regard to Finsbury Park,  coordination across the three boroughs, particularly between Hackney and Islington was good. Haringey did contribute and as the owner of the park there was work that had been undertaken by parks teams regarding rough sleepers. There had been significant achievements and the Home Office had approved a position for a park patrol to combat violence against women and girls for one night a week in Finsbury Park. The night was still to be selected.

·         With regard to Northumberland Park, slides were shared that demonstrated changes in reported crime levels, though it was difficult to provide reassurance to the local residents that issues were being dealt with until an issue had been fully dealt with. Work was being done so that Police appeared more visible to the public.

·         When looking at drug supply or drug use, some statistics had gone up and this was due to arrests and prosecutions. The same was true of knife crime, including possession of weapons and this too was due to police action. However, police action can result in an uptick in crime levels creating an impression of there being more crime.

·         The Clear, Hold, Build model as a concept was designed  for discrete geographical locations that were easy to manage and was an appropriate size for the resourcing.

·         The chosen area was meant to just be one area of Northumberland Park, but there was some encouragement for it to be extended further and therefore it did so. There had been a belief that there would be constant increases of money and resources that would be able to come in. There was no end date.

·         The ‘clear’ phase which was police-led action where an area was ‘cleared’. This followed the hold phase where partnership approaches were taken to make sure the progress was sustainable. However, the stages of ‘clear’ and ‘hold’ were mostly done at the same time. The ‘build’ phase was to invest into the area in some way. The borough of Enfield had reportedly benefitted from a £12 millionbudget to make improvements in certain areas, although this would not always be the case for all areas.

·         In relation to joint working with Enfield, being adjacent to Edmonton brought some challenges. There were challenges of working across two boroughs (Haringey and Enfield) and beyond. Examples included, how statutory and voluntary agencies from both boroughs work with individuals who did not recognise borough boundaries and a significant challenge in relation to vulnerable people placed in Haringey owing to care and support provision that was available.

·         It was to critical work with the Housing team because there had been a long history of antisocial behaviour in certain housing blocks. Having a strong relationship with Housing had to be in place so that residents living in their homes felt safe.

·         Collaboration with the Planning team was important so that more HMOs or houses converted to HMOs would be minimised. This was an issue in the borough.

·         Forming a narrative for public awareness was very important. The public needed to be aware of any positive progress and it was not enough to do this on a website or social media. It needed to be done in a different way.

·         The Clear, Hold, Build Executive Board would meet next in April 2026 and there were three key actions which had been set. One was adequate representation at the meeting. Another was having clear definitions of success. This meant what defined success from each of the partnership areas and communicating this as at would help to establish when movement had been made from the ‘clear’ phase into the ‘build’ and ‘hold’ phases. A third action was to take back and socialise the prompts an engagement strategy that supported the operation. This meant sharing with the community on how to access new services or different services would bought into the area.

RESOLVED:

To note the content of the presentation at the Community Safety Partnership, having due regard to the analysis of what is in effect ‘working well, even better if’ analysis.